Our interview with Lucy Guo is scheduled to start at 6pm London time, 10am in Los Angeles, where she lives. As the clock strikes, she logs onto the Zoom call at the exact moment, not a minute earlier, not a minute later.
It’s a fine art to ensure the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire gets through all her obligations. Although there is still room for some unexpected chaos, such as her two cats — Chili and Sega — waking her up at 5am, 30 minutes before she planned.
‘One was pooping very heavily. It was like a little robot going and going, so my room smelled,’ says Lucy, with a smile that barely leaves her face over our half-hour chat.
The robot comparison is fitting, as Lucy made her money through Scale AI, an artificial intelligence data-labelling company that she launched in 2016, at the age of just 21. By the time she hit 30, she had made a billion.
‘AI companies had massive amounts of money to spend on training data, because the models are only as good as the data provided,’ Lucy explains. Turning it into more simplistic terms for us, the tech tycoon adds, ‘If the data says the sky is red, AI doesn’t know that that’s not true. High-quality training data ensures models are outputting correct information.’
After two years, Lucy left the company with an estimated 5% stake. This April, the insider shares were valued at $25 billion, so Lucy’s cut is worth approximately $1.2 billion. ‘I wish it were liquid cash,’ she laughs.
Offering insight into life as a self-made billionaire, Lucy says that after her pungent wake-up call earlier today, she went to the notoriously tough Barry’s Bootcamp for a double workout class. ‘I’ve gotten lazy; it used to be triple.’
Lucy then headed to her 25,000 sqft office just off Melrose Avenue — which is where she’s talking to us from — and she’ll remain there until 8pm, not even stopping for lunch. Instead, she’ll get something delivered via Uber Eats to keep her sustained during meetings. ‘I’ll make sure it’s an internal one so I am not judged,’ she adds.
But her day will be far from over. Lucy tells us she’ll continue to work at home in the evening before heading to bed at midnight – or if she fancies it, she’ll stay up dancing with friends until 2am. Repeat.
‘My genetics mean that I don’t need to sleep that much. Thank you, Mom and Dad,’ Lucy offers as a way of explanation. We’re knackered just listening to her.
Business-minded
Although Lucy doesn’t get into specifics about exactly how much of her cash is liquid, it’s safe to say that the woman from Fremont, California, who knocked Taylor Swift off the billionaire top spot is doing well for herself.
So, how does she have motivation when she’s already got enough money to live comfortably forever? ‘I tried the whole retirement thing and it didn’t work. The concept of an off day doesn’t make sense to me,’ Lucy admits. ‘I like using my brain.’
Lucy seems largely unfazed by her impressive achievements, saying that her first reaction to the record title was ‘LOL’. When asked how it’s impacted her life, she says receiving more PR gifts is the biggest difference.
The irony of free things for being a billionaire is not lost on her, but Lucy can’t help expressing childlike excitement. ‘I love free things. I just got four different chilli oils. I love chilli oil,’ she marvels.
Her passion isn’t just reserved for condiments; she’s also excited about her other business baby, Passes, the creator-driven platform she founded in 2022 after ‘getting the itch’ to build a company again, that now employs around 50 staff.
She felt inspired by Kylie Jenner and Jake Paul building highly lucrative brands and thought she could help more people do the same. On her platform, creators can earn money through merchandise, live streaming, or subscriptions, which has naturally led to OnlyFans comparisons, but Lucy insists it’s more similar to the subscription site Patreon.
‘We’ve created a lot of millionaires, which is so exciting,’ she says proudly. However, the project has not been without controversy. A class-action lawsuit was filed earlier this year by a creator who claims Passes hosted and distributed nude photos of her in the month before her 18th birthday.
The subject is off the table for today’s interview, with Metro instead being provided with a statement from a company spokesperson that calls the filing an ‘orchestrated attempt to defame Passes and Ms. Guo’, adding that ‘these claims have no basis in reality’ and were filed against them after ‘they rejected a $15 million payment demand’.
Early indicators of success
Lucy stays focused on the positives of business, something that began in childhood. ‘My parents instilled values of making money, so I was always trying to start little businesses on the playground,’ she recalls. ‘I would strategically trade up Pokémon cards and sell the better ones for more dollars.’
Her parents, Chinese immigrants who worked as engineers, had a specific path in mind for Lucy. ‘In their heads, I needed to make a good enough salary to support myself, but then get married young. They wanted me to be a pharmacist, so I could work three days a week, and spend the other four days dating,’ she says.
However, their daughter chose to study computer science and human-computer interaction at the prestigious Pittsburgh university, Carnegie Mellon. That was, until she dropped out after earning a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship before interning at Facebook, becoming the first female designer at Snapchat and meeting her Scale AI cofounder, Alexandr Wang, at Quora.
Still, her parents want something more: ‘They say to me, “You’re going to be single forever, but we still want grandchildren. You should find sperm donors and pop out three babies so we can be grandparents”.’
Asked if she feels the same way, Lucy takes a rare pause. ‘People are intimidated by me…’ she begins. ‘It takes a very secure person to date me if I’m completely honest.’ Summarising, the billionaire admits the one thing she’s given up to reach her position is ‘stability’.
She accepts that her arrogance can be disconcerting, but describes it as a key driving characteristic for success. ‘Most founders lean towards arrogance because you have to be crazy, right?’ she asks, confident in the answer. ‘You genuinely think you have a shot at building a unicorn company, and that is insane because there’s only a handful in the world.
‘All founders need arrogance because otherwise, you’re not going to be able to put the full effort in and work those 100-hour weeks.’
Never switching off
Although she works every single day, weekends and holidays are no exception, Lucy far from resents it and insists the concept of an off day is unappealing. In fact, she’s baffled that others don’t feel the same.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she says, visibly confused. ‘I’m like, “What do you mean you can’t answer emails?” It’s just emails, it’s not that much work.’
While her comments verge on the ‘everyone has the same 24 hours in a day’ territory, Lucy considers herself an ethical billionaire, regularly investing in other people’s businesses through Backend Capital, a venture capital firm.
‘I don’t forget about basic human decency and being nice,’ she says. ‘I’m constantly trying to help people. That’s how I am in my life, it’s all about energies, right?’
Picking up on her spiritual glossary, we ask if she believes in manifestation. ‘I know it’s a bit LA, but if you believe in something and you want it badly enough, it comes. The world works that way,’ she says.
A life of adventure is also what she asks for, and so most of her money goes on experiences, with her latest extravagance being a skydiving license. She also spends big on Pokémon collectables, motorcycles, and luxury properties in LA and Miami (she counts David Beckham as her neighbour in the latter), but you won’t ever catch her hitting up Hermès. ‘I don’t own a bag. I don’t see the point. My phone has a little pocket for my credit cards, and if I’m on period, I make sure that my outfit has pockets for my tampon,’ she explains.
The future is bagless — and AI, but Lucy assures us we have nothing to fear: ‘AI will make us more efficient in our jobs. It’s good at repeatable, mundane tasks, so we can focus our brain power on the more exciting stuff. Jobs that require a lot of human connections are going to become more in demand, too. I’m very excited for the world.’
As for her title of youngest self-made female billionaire, Lucy insists she will be thrilled when it’s taken away. ‘I can’t wait for someone else to have it because that means that women are crushing it. It will happen very soon because AI companies are growing faster than anyone could have predicted. I expect someone to crush me,’ she says.
And with that, our 30 minutes are up, and Lucy’s already onto her next appointment — a meeting with Passes’ design team where she will be giving detailed feedback on the platform.
It’s clear that the work doesn’t stop, and neither does Lucy.
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